Chapter Twenty-Six
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Ily
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I EXISTED IN A DIFFERENT world.
That world grew ever more solid with every breath, manifesting from nothing to everything. Slowly at first, barely there, but insidious. Horribly, horribly insidious.
My heart rate increased and sweat broke out, but I managed to keep my mind from skittering into la-la land with slow, measured breaths.
I wanted to stick my finger down my throat and throw up what Peter had given.
The need to stop the foggy overtaking of my mind became absolutely paramount.
I couldn’t afford to forget.
Couldn’t allow myself to drown.
Don’t give in.
Just ignore it.
I sucked in another breath.
It’s just a stupid mushroom.
Dizziness struck from nowhere.
Drowsiness and distorted thoughts all turned soft around the edges.
No.
Stay sharp.
Blinking furiously, I cleared my eyes from the haze gathering in the corners. Somewhere in the room a clock ticked, growing louder, twisting my fearful heartbeat.
Every tick, terror-burning fires erupted inside me.
Every tock, smoke billowed thicker, making reality feather into fancy.
A hyena’s cackle echoed in my ears.
That’s not real.
Focus!
I locked my gaze on Henri as Victor commanded him to pour copious amounts of alcohol down his throat.
He gagged as he finished his first glass.
He grimaced as he finished his second.
And he shook his head with a sloppy sway, refusing the third.
“No more.” Swallowing hard, he cleared his throat.
“Too much. Too fast. I need—” He stumbled forward, grabbing hold of one of the cabinets holding death upon death.
“Just...give me a moment.” Sliding to the floor, he sat on his ass and drew up his knees, putting his head between them. “Fuck, the room’s swimming.”
“Guess you can’t hold as much as I thought,” Victor muttered. Placing Henri’s untouched third drink back on the glittering bar, he pulled a velvet rope in the corner.
Somewhere in the kitchens below, a bell would chime, waking up a servant to bring whatever it was that Victor had just summoned.
“I haven’t eaten in fuck knows how long,” Henri groaned, wiping his mouth with a shaky hand. “You’ve just given me eight or nine shots, judging by your generous pours.”
“Bet you’re wishing you’d eaten now, aren’t you?” Victor snickered. “Never mind. You’ll start to feel the effects in a few minutes. By thirty, you’ll be well on your way to being free.”
“Dead more like.” Raking his hands through his hair, Henri looked up and caught my eyes.
For a second, no one else existed.
The syrupy sickness slowly creeping through me didn’t matter, the drunkenness in his gaze didn’t matter. We were still joined. Still bound. Still in this together.
Together.
I clung to that word like a life raft.
I wanted to haul Henri onto it too—to pluck him out of the sea of alcohol currently drowning him and promise that no matter what happened, no matter what he did, we would get through this together.
I could handle pain.
I would slip into a lifetime of meditation and numb each cut he would give me.
Peter had endured this game multiple times.
I can too.
And then, we’d go back to Henri’s room and figure out a new plan. A plan to finally tell his fellow officers to come get us.
Giving me a tragic shrug, Henri closed his eyes and rested his head against the cabinet.
Even with his eyes closed, the bargain between us held fast. We’d made a commitment to do whatever it took to save Peter and the jewels. Just because he was drunk and I was drugged didn’t mean we couldn’t keep that promise.
Another foggy haze clouded my head, tugging me down, down—
No.
I clung to the connection between us.
I braided a rope of all our secrets and all his confessions, lassoing myself to him so I didn’t fail when it came time to act out our scene.
You both can’t be compromised.
You understand that, right?
One of us under the influence would be a disaster, but both?
We’d fail.
We’ll forget our lines and—
Rainbows suddenly glittered off prancing zebras.
Waterfalls sounded in the towering potted ferns.
The clicks, chirps, and scurries of jewel-coloured beetles added to the percussion where hooves thundered from herds of wildebeest and the lamenting calls of mated swans above echoed like a sad orchestra.
No.
Please no.
Hunching into myself, I fought the ever-deafening sounds coming from delusion.
A loud knock sounded on the door, ripping through me like cannon fire.
I flinched and ducked over my knees, only for Henri to suck in a worried breath and Peter to nudge my shoulder with his.
The pressure of his body against mine felt wrong, unwanted.
I inched away, wincing at the scratchiness of the carpet against my bare skin.
“Just put it there, please,” Victor murmured, waving at a shell-inlaid backgammon table nestled beside a cage holding a thousand dead hummingbirds all contorted and wired to look as if they flew in an emerald, sapphire, and amethyst hurricane.
“Yes, Sir V.” Two men in black suits placed a large platter on the table before ripping off silver domes and vanishing out the door. The scents of decadent morsels shot up my nose.
I gnashed my teeth together, forcing myself not to be violently sick.
“You said you needed to eat?” Victor smirked at Henri swallowing hard on the floor. “So...eat.”
“Yeah, I’m good.” Henri groaned. “If I eat, I’ll shurl.”
Oh no.
Tears pricked my eyes.
He’s slurring already.
I shifted beside Peter, trying to get Henri’s attention.
Eat!
Please eat!
Soak up the liquor.
Don’t let him win.
A gust of icy paranoia clawed at my spine.
What if he wants to be drunk so he can finally be free?
What if he planned this, and he’s been lying this entire time?
No.
He wouldn’t.
He—
Memories of him chasing me outside the castle came fast. Bruises on my spine as he shoved me down. Flames on my lips as he kissed me. He’d held nothing back out there. I’d seen the truth.
He wants this...
A vision of myself strung up and bleeding corrupted my mind. Droplets of blood dripping out of me, one red bead at a time, falling onto Henri’s tongue, him lapping up my lifeforce just like he lapped up my tears.
He’ll eat me alive.
That’s not true—
A loud, delusional laugh echoed in madness. Laughter as he cut me, then mounted me. His savage grunts as he took me, all while bleeding me dry.
My grasp on reality unravelled, faster and faster, crazier and crazier.
The clock on the wall ticked louder, louder. Things came alive all around me. Animals stared. Birds fluttered. Spiders skittered down the wall.
I tripped into mad hallucinations.
I saw things I knew weren’t real, but I couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t stop seeing hunters with khaki camouflage, cocking their rifles, and slaughtering every miserable creature in this place.
My ears rang with gunshots and death calls.
The screech of a deer.
The bellow of a rhino.
So, so much death.
All around me, above me, below me.
It crushed me into a grave made of bloodstained carpet and misery.
The white and red carpet suddenly transformed into tiny nasty mites, burrowing into my flesh and devouring me.
I heard them inside.
The loud scritch, scritch, scritch as their gnawing little teeth devoured me cell by cell.
I scratched my arms again, deeper this time, harder.
I tried to reach into my veins and pluck their nasty carcasses free.
Peter shot me a concerned look as I raked sharp nails over my hot, hot skin.
This was worse.
So much worse than what I’d suffered when I’d reluctantly puffed some weed with a friend from school. That had only granted crushing anxiety and heart palpitations.
But this?
This darkened my mind with all kinds of horrors.
One moment, my breasts swelled with need.
The next, I wanted to throw myself out the window.
One breath, I was wet. The next, I couldn’t even touch myself without being utterly repulsed.
Polar opposites—love and hate, bliss and despair.
A never-ending merry-go-round of yes and no and life and death and louder, louder, louder!
Clamping my hands over my ears, I tried to block out the cacophony of animals. Barks and trills, snorts and whistles.
Too much.
Too much!
“Ily...” Peter hesitantly stroked my thigh. “It’s okay—”
I had no control over my reaction.
“Don’t touch me!” I yelped, skittering away and curling into a ball.
Make it stop.
Please, please make it stop.
Footfalls thudded on the carpet.
The presence of someone’s energy prickled my hypersensitive skin.
I huddled tighter.
I fell and fell, tumbling and tripping into madness.
Heavy, large hands landed on my shoulders, pulling me upright.
I did my best to cling to sanity.
I froze as my gaze met Henri’s.
And in that crystal clarity as our eyes touched and our spirits forged, I saw him.
Truly saw him.
He might’ve been honest with me.
He might’ve said what lurked inside him.
But hearing was different from seeing and now...I saw.
I saw everything.
Bat wings sprouted from his back, veiny and webby and torn in places as if he’d flown through the gates of hell. His skin darkened and scribed with glowing red runes. Fangs indented his bottom lip as he opened his mouth and spoke things I couldn’t understand.
And his eyes?
The gorgeous grey depths that held such pain, such loneliness, blackened to burning brimstone as he plucked me from the ground and shook me.
Even drunk, he was strong.
Terribly, terrifyingly strong.
I dangled in his hold.
“Ily. Snap out of it.” His nose pressed to mine; I tumbled into his soul. Tumbled and tumbled, deep into his charred and twisted heart full of desperation and restraint, right and wrong, sadist and saint.
Pressing his fanged lips to my ear, he whispered, “Stay with me. I really, shreally need youse to stay with me.”
His slurs slithered into my soul.
His fingers burrowed into my flesh.
Panic percolated like a blizzard, frosting my bones and turning air into painful icicles.
Don’t touch me.
Please don’t—
His hands were a thousand fire ants.
His closeness a million poisonous needles.
Let me go—
Pressing me hard against him, all I could feel was heat and hardness, power and punishment.